Commonwealth v. Souza’s Empirical Analysis
1998
Citation profile
8 district · 58 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 66 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably Commonwealth v. Berry (2000), Commonwealth v. Clemente (2008)
8 district · 58 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Commonwealth v. Latimore · Anthony v. United States · Morey v. Commonwealth · Commonwealth v. Tavares · Commonwealth v. Casale
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 66 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“As a general rule, the jury should receive an instruction on a particular offense where: (1) the offense is, as a matter of law, a lesser included offense of the crime charged; and (2) the evidence provides a rational basis for acquitting the defendant of the crime charged and convicting him of the lesser included offense.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“In determining whether an involuntary manslaughter instruction must be given, we ask whether any reasonable view of the evidence would have permitted the jury to find wanton and reckless conduct rather than actions from which a plain and strong likelihood of death would follow”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Commonwealth v. Pina“unless the proof on the elements differentiating the two crimes is sufficiently in dispute so that the jury may consistently find the defendant innocent of the greater and guilty of the lesser included offense.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.